Legends yet untold
by MasterPassionCreed
Summary: Of the past, and different realms. Three connected one-shots, written to tell several secrets.


**Legends yet untold  
**_Part 1 - Endless Corridors_

Nobody in the village could tell for sure. The memories had crumbled in the long walk of the years; years so distant, by then, that the keepers of the stories – men among forgetful men – had lost track of the first generation from time immemorial.

In the great blank that had replaced the past, the people had lost sight of many things. If not completely gone, the fear had whitened, and was no longer more than a cold breeze in the night of their consciences. Nobody ever felt surprise or sadness – the parents stayed silent, and bent their heads to the greater good. Nobody felt regret.

Even so, among the echoes of times that had been washed away without a trace, a few hints had stayed.

Those who took care of the sacrifices never talked – the ritual was carried out in silence, and secretly passed on. Not a soul ever dreamed of doubting that those children meant misfortune; there was the touch of a curse, and unspeakable fear.  
And, most of all, that the sacrifices were bound to end in the castle was the only certainty they held. To their eyes, it was the trace of an ancestral call.

Scraps of truth, or at least habits – they were their only clues, and the villagers, growing less and less aware with the flow of time, clung to them with the tenacity of their superstitions. The shamans and the elders gathered with the people, telling the only stories they knew, rewritten and changed too many times to count.

Far above, beyond the trees and the towers, the same sun had been shining for centuries.

The rays followed their cycle, ahead and back in time; they shifted from the village square to the roads and the forest, then to the castle, with those forgotten moments all treasured in their eyes.

Seasons and seasons before, in the summer, light showered on a tall watchtower, built on a natural rocky formation not far from the beach. A small dock lay next to a wide cave, marking the main entrance; just inside, a spiral staircase climbed all around a circular stone wall. The top was not far above the rocks – it was small, but high enough to enjoy the view of the boundless blue expanse.

The villagers used to walk to the shore every so often, occasionally trading with a few ships from the isles, or going fishing themselves. In those remote times, they all agreed to it. The watchtower had a magical atmosphere – especially because, from there, all the sounds from the land were muffled, and the gulls and the waves sung the only song.

The day it all began was a long row of hot, suffocating hours, at the end of which none of the sentinels came back from the sea. All the people saw was a lonely silhouette of a boat; that night, under their worried gaze, just one man climbed his way to the village.

He had gone fishing by mere chance – that was what he told them, his voice full of the anxious excitement that accompanies relevant news. He told of how the fish fled his net, unnaturally fast, and of the sudden vibration he had felt from the bowel of the earth – and when the water had stopped quivering, finally leaving his boat still, he was very close to the watchtower, and could distinctly hear the sound of hammers.

The night that followed refused to bring quiet sleep to anyone. More men than usual stayed up, willing to guard the borders and watch anything that might come from the sea. Most of them could only see the moonless sky; but the finest ears caught, hidden in the waves, the echoes of sounds typically bound to a large, growing building.

The fears and the murmurs spread throughout that entire night, keeping the adults of the village constantly half-awake. In the last seconds of complete darkness, minutes before dawn, they had long given up on rest. They were conscious, and much less quiet than the evening before, when the earthquake came.

Never leaving the shore for a moment, their eyes followed the sunrise as it lit an island that had never been there before. The rocks had risen twice their natural height; they had grown to be a tiny mountain by themselves, with clefts, solid sides and natural caves swept by the wind.

The top, on the other hand, was mostly flat and smooth; and in the middle of it all, standing out against a rough sea, the watchtower lay unharmed. The base of the building, now solidly planted on the island, was located at a lower level than the highest rocks; but its shape was still erect and sharp.  
Nobody in the group was able to tear their gaze away. None of them, scared and tired from the long watch, could tell the difference at first.

It was a little girl to notice, later in the morning, that the tower had actually grown in height. The top had disappeared, hidden by a tall line of freshly assembled walls; they were made of square, large stone blocks, which looked nothing like the ones they were used to.

And a shiver ran down the spines of each of them – not because they knew who had most likely spent the whole night building those walls, but because, just by looking at them, they already couldn't tell how it had been possible in the first place.

The daring lot who collected enough strength to row to the open sea reported exactly what they had feared. Even from the large caves at the bottom of the cliffs, which did not show any kind of entrance and no longer had a dock, they could hear men at work; and they had found it terrifying that, with such few sentinels trapped in the tower, the noise could be so loud.

As expected, their tale did nothing but fuel fears and nightmares. The villagers interrupted half of their daily routine – they kept talking, crying, or praying to the gods of light.

Becoming slow, and full of bad omens, was the fate of their lives. So it happened throughout the long days that followed – until the days melted in weeks, and months, and turned their anxiety into an uncomfortable habit. More or less everyone, women and children included, got used to the idea their men would never return.

Yet, right in front of them, the walls were telling a different truth.

Every time they paid attention to it, the monotonous chant of the tools multiplied – it was scarier at night, when the rustle made it seem like hundred of workers had joined in. And the once small tower, by then completely rebuilt, was being surrounded by something that was, way too fast for human rhythms, reaching the size of a gigantic castle.

Countless blocks and tiles marked the passing of the seasons. A light drizzle made the first mushrooms grow; just like them, after every night, arches and pillars were found anew on the sea. The cold and the fog mingled, the walls whitened. The rare snow fell, and the halls multiplied under its touch.

By the time the bridge started growing, it was late spring again.

For the first time, the watchmen spotted a colossal stone door; with it, three arches had stretched in the sea, right towards the far end of the path to the beach. Stone steps parted it from the entrance to the castle, reaching the exact level of the village. And in fact, on the edge of the very land they inhabited, there was a change nobody had seen coming.

Where the bridge, once completed, should have leaned on their side, they found a black piece of machinery, coming from a nature they had never known themselves, or even heard of. Whatever its function could be, it was certain; the castle was made to be accessible, and no one could guess why.

Since then, they never stopped checking on the bridge. As the arches grew in number, the whole building released soft whirrs; and by night, when their fires were all extinguished, many villagers noticed how the few windows and open spaces had started glowing green. They merely watched, speechless and without a clue. There was no way to stop the curse.

The idea of a contact – touching a building that had haunted the skyline for so long, full of dark and unknown magic – gave hope to the few families who had been left alone, but made the others restless; the people were split in half as, once again, panic slowed down their daily life to an intolerable level.

There were words of uncertainty, fears, fights. And the elders, put in front of a decision that, either way, would have changed everyone's future, made the last choice they had left.

The final day was a unique one – it was one the first days of summer, the same day as the start, a whole unfortunate year before. The shaman left with two warriors and the elders, rowing from the beach; the hunters, well-armed, crossed the completed bridge to meet whatever fate was expecting them. They walked away together, murmuring a prayer of good luck; for right then, in one of the smaller huts, the youngest mother was giving birth.

In spite of their heavy load, the two boats were swift and light; the old men felt a gentle breeze on their skin, severed and far from the laws that usually bound the winds of the coast. It was leading them – to what, they could not know.

The shaman felt little surprise when, at the far end of the cave, he found a new dock ready for them. He had to expect anything. It was a time and place of foreign magic – he was aware that every sight, every influence, every object he witnessed was, sooner or later, bound to serve a purpose.

Just as the elders crossed the small entrance, a group of long-lost sentinels reunited with the hunters, seemingly oblivious and in shock. They spoke of nightmares, of black and light blue – they told tales of a prison, and insisted they knew nothing more. They were led back home, then prepared to cleanse their souls.

At the bottom of the tower, the few men stared at the immense void above their heads, trembling in fear and awe. One of them, however, looked for other traces.

The shaman could not help ignoring the walls, the tall stairs, the light that rained on them; he felt a strong hint of power, quivering and beckoning from very near. He gave a start as his hands moved on their own.

The first thing he could think of was that the portal his fingers were exploring – he followed the shapes, he felt the colours, the faint glow – had to be old, very old, and very powerful. Such level of magic had never touched his soul before; and he dreamt of how the gods of light and darkness show themselves among mortals, and how the vital energy of their soldiers, of their victims, is carved deep in the stone idols...

From the core of the portal, a scream pierced through his heart, echoing from his mouth to the bends of the tall tower. It was a sound terrible enough to cycle through time, over and over again – bound to repeat itself, in the voices of many years and descendants, sealing a fate beyond mortal knowledge.

He could not see it yet, but he would soon – that the deep horror of that sound was springing from his home, where a mother, wet with terrified tears, was staring at the head of his newborn son.

* * *

Hello there, ICO fans! I hope you will enjoy this collection of three one-shots, which are, in the first place, one of my ways to explain of the mysteries behind the castle and the realm of shadows. Don't worry if things are not clear yet; in the end, the chapters will complete each other.  
Feel free to tell me anything you might want to suggest!


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